


our roots remain the same

by gilligankane



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 05:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15089765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: Noah unfolds the piece of paper and pushes it at her.Charity reads it over, eyes scanning the page. She laughs, sharp and cutting, and passes the paper to Vanessa.“A family tree,” Vanessa reads.





	our roots remain the same

**Author's Note:**

> For [heartsways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsways/pseuds/heartsways/works?fandom_id=152669), who helped out and gave me some direction. The family forest is all her idea.

Noah folds and unfolds the piece of paper he’s holding - back and forth into and out of a tight square shape that fits in the front pocket of his body warmer. He’s been putting off the assignment all week, trying to ignore every time his fingers brushed the page when he went to and from school. But it’s due tomorrow and if he misses one more assignment, they’ll call his mum. If the school doesn’t fine him, she definitely will. 

“Mum?”

Charity looks up from the magazine she’s meandering through, idly flipping pages without reading any of the article. He knows she’s not reading them because Vanessa is sitting at the other end of the couch, playing with the ends of her hair and going on about something Pete said to Rhona that was ‘dead romantic’ - and gross-sounding, he’d reckon, by the loved up look on Vanessa’s face. 

“Yeah?” she asks absently. 

He can see Vanessa’s hand disappear into her hair and he makes a face. It’s not that he’s bothered she’s here all the time. He doesn’t even care about the nights he gets dragged to Tug Ghyll. Vanessa hasn’t been  _ that _ horrible. She makes him a snack before footie practice and makes the whole family go to his school nights. That should be embarrassing, but his mum has never come before that, and it’s not so bad when she starts in on his teachers. Vanessa even lets him sit on the couch in front of the telly for tea time - only because there’s not enough chairs at the kitchen table at her house, yet. 

It’s been  _ months _ and she’s still here and even he can start to believe it when she says she’s going nowhere.

He’d never tell  _ her _ that, though.

Vanessa leans forward and kisses Charity on the cheek, whispering something in her ear. He makes another face. He gets it; they’re  _ together _ . But that doesn’t mean they need to snog right in front of him. 

“Roar!” Moses yells, jabbing the open mouth of a dinosaur figurine into his leg. Johnny, sitting on the floor at Charity’s foot, giggles.

“Moz!” Noah shouts, rubbing at his leg.

Charity reaches out her other foot, catching Moses in between her legs. “Steady on, yeah?”

Moses turns to him and pushes the figurine in his direction again, whispering “roar” at him. 

“That’s a good boy,” Charity praises. She rubs a finger over his forehead and smiles.

“Mum,” Noah tries again. “I’ve got this school project…”

“Big brother Joe isn’t footing the bill for someone else to do it?” Charity asks. She winces, pulling away from Vanessa’s hand and rubbing at the back of her head. “What’re you like?”

Vanessa makes a face at her, her  _ be nice _ face. Noah has seen it before, but usually Charity ignores it and keeps taking the mick while Paddy pouts. This time, his mum scowls for a moment but softens and rolls her eyes, blowing air out of her nose hard enough for it make a hard  _ whoosh _ .

“Go on, then,” she tells him.

Noah unfolds the piece of paper and pushes it at her.

Charity reads it over, eyes scanning the page. She laughs, sharp and cutting, and passes the paper to Vanessa.

“A family tree,” Vanessa reads.

“Family  _ forest _ , more like,” Charity mutters. Vanessa makes that face again and Charity sighs. “Well, what’d you think I should call it?”

Noah snatches the paper out of Vanessa’s hand, folding it and pushing it back into his pocket. “Can you help me or not?”

“Did you ask for help?” Charity asks him.

Noah sighs and looks away. “I’ll fail it if you don’t.”

Charity opens her mouth but Vanessa’s hand disappears into her side and she snaps her mouth closed again, scowling at Vanessa.

Vanessa smiles sweetly at him. “‘Course she’ll help.”

“‘Course I will,” Charity says through clenched teeth.

Vanessa stands, rolling her shoulders with a soft  _ pop _ . “I’ll take the boys upstairs and get them in the bath, yeah?”

“Roar!” Moses shouts, stamping his feet on the floor.

Johnny jumps up quickly, mimicking Moses, another dinosaur figure in his hands. “Raw!”

“Yes, my darling dinosaurs,” Vanessa says brightly, her hands on the back of their heads. “Let’s go draw a bath, shall we?”

“I want ta take my dino,” Moses demands.

“Of course,” Vanessa agrees. “He’ll need a proper wash, won’t he?”

“She,” Moses corrects seriously. “Johnny’s got the boy one.”

“My mistake,” Vanessa says smoothly. She looks back over her shoulder at him and then Charity, winking at her. “Won’t be long,” she promises. “And then I’ll make us tea.”

“Ta, babe,” Charity says softly. Her magazine is in her lap, abandoned, and she’s watching the way Moses clutches Vanessa’s hand in his as they leave the living room and start up the stairs.

_ That’s _ different, too. 

His mum never looked at Jai like that, or Declan. She never even looked at Cain that way, either. There’s something else in her eyes when she looks at Vanessa, a different kind of softness he doesn’t have the words to explain. He knows it’s different, though. Different and deeper. It’s the same kind of look that Cain gets in his eyes when he looks at Moira, or when Pete looks at Rhona. He remembers what Pete had told him at Leo’s last birthday party, tucked away in the corner at Rhona’s house on his phone and complaining about having to put a flamin’ party hat on. Pete had clapped him on the shoulder and told him someday, he’d love someone enough that a party hat wouldn’t feel stupid. It would just feel right.

Noah had told him he looked like a tosser, but Pete only laughed.

He wondered if love would make him that daft, too.

He knows what Charity has said before; that she was in love and she wanted to give him a family. But he’s not sure she’d put on a party hat for Cain. She put it on when Vanessa pouted, though, and kept it on the whole time, even wearing it home. 

Vanessa is different; his mum said so.

But his mum is different, too.

“Right, then,” Charity says, clapping her hands together. “A family tree. I hope you brought a poster to write on.”

Noah ignores her, pulling a notebook out of his bag and flipping it open to a clean page. “I know there’s you and me.”

Charity nods. “Start with that, yeah? Chris was your dad, and he was married to Rachel and Kathy and…” She trails off, rubbing at her eyes. “This is going to take all bloody night, innit?”

Noah shrugs. “I guess we can just do the people I know?”

“Still too many,” Charity mutters. She sits up a little straighter. “Go on, then. Start drawing your lines.”

Noah writes his name in the lower part of the page, drawing one line stretching up above it. He splits it, putting ‘Charity Dingle’ at the end of one side of the split, and ‘Chris Tate’ at the other. He draws a line from ‘Chris Tate’ towards side of the page, scribbling ‘Joe Tate’ at the end of it. 

“Rachel,” Charity says quietly. “Joe’s mum. Her name was Rachel.”

Noah writes that next to Chris’s name. “And Aunt Zoe,” he says, trying to ignore the way Charity bristles at the mention of her name. “So… your side.”

Charity scoffs. “Do we really have to go through this?”

Noah twists his face until he makes something he thinks is Vanessa’s  _ be nice _ look. It must work, because Charity sighs again and gestures at him to keep going.

“Your parents,” he starts.

Charity waves her hand in the air. “Obadiah and Kathy.”

He scribbles that down above ‘Charity’ and looks up expectantly. “So where next.”

Charity turns the page towards her and sighs as she looks it over. She stands. “I’ll need a drink,” she mutters.

Noah watches her unscrew the top on a wine bottle, pouring an amount that would probably have Vanessa shaking her head and taking a few slices off the top when Charity isn’t looking. 

She leans back against the counter, ankles crossed in front of her and her arms folded over her chest. Noah taps his pencil against the notebook impatiently and looks at her expectantly. She rolls her eyes.

“Well, there’s Cain,” she starts. “And we had Debbie.”

Noah starts writing - lines and circles and dashes. He connects Cain and Debbie, adding Sarah and Jack’s initials below that. He makes a mental note to go back in and add Andy. 

“Ross and Moz,” Charity continues. “Might as well add Pete in there, yeah?” She swirls her glass of wine. “Ryan,” she breathes.

Noah’s pencil scratches against the page. He didn’t know if his mum would add him on there, and he didn’t want to ask. He’s been trying to give her space and she’s been secretive about him; Noah’s only met him once even though Vanessa has met him a hundred times.  _ I don’t want him to be overwhelmed _ , his mum had said.  _ You an’ all _ . 

Noah gets it, he does. But he’s just a bit tired of finding out he has older brothers he never knew about. 

“And his dad?” he asks slowly.

“Doesn’t have one,” Charity says hotly. She exhales noisily. “Just… Leave him out of it, would you?”

“‘Course,” Noah says quietly. He gives her a small smile and it stretches when she rolls her eyes at him. She smiles back, though, and he leans down over his page again, adding ‘Ryan’ to the same line as his, Debbie’s, and Moses’s name. He draws a line, connecting Charity and Ryan in one solid stretch. 

He plots the rest of the family tree out while Charity works through her glass of wine and pours a second. He connects ‘Cain’ and ‘Chas’ and lines them up under ‘Faith.’ He makes ‘Shadrach’ too big and has to go back and erase it, to add ‘Zak’ above ‘Cain.’ He adds ‘Marlon’ and ‘April’ and ‘Leo’ and then puts ‘Rhona’ in and connects her to ‘Pete’ just because. He adds ‘Paddy’ and has to keep the notebook away from Charity when she tries to get him to erase it. After that it’s ‘Lisa’ and ‘Belle’; ‘Samson’ and ‘Sam’ and ‘Aaron’. He links ‘Aaron’ to ‘Liv’ and ‘Robert’ and makes a soft, dashed line down under ‘Debbie’ to ‘Andy.’

He’s in the middle of double-checking everything when the living room door opens and Moses comes flying over the threshold, his dinosaur still in his hand. Johnny follows behind him, already blinking sleepily and clutching Vanessa’s hand. He lights up when he sees Noah, curling around Noah’s knee as he gets closer.

“Roar!” Moses shouts, running into Charity’s legs.

She barely gets her wine glass down in time, catching him with one arm and lifting him onto her hip. He buries his figurine in her hair, pretending like his dino is chewing her ear, and Noah watches as she plays into it.

She did that with him, too, when they were together.  _ Partners in crime _ , they used to be. He looks down at the family tree he’s drawn out, taking in every branch and how they stretch and bend back over each other. For the first time in a long time, he feels lucky to have a single, solid line that connects him to his mum.

Vanessa peers over his shoulder, humming to herself as she scans his work. She makes a small noise of surprise and he looks back up at her, nodding. 

“She told me to,” he says quietly, knowing that she’s talking about Ryan’s name, right there on the page.

Vanessa runs a finger over it, drifting across the page and looping around the swirl of the letters in his and Moses’s name. 

“What’s your family tree look like?” he asks.

Vanessa blinks at him for a moment, tipping her head to the side. “What?”

Noah points at his notebook. “What’s yours like?”

Vanessa laughs softly, but Noah frowns. It doesn’t really sound like a laugh at all, not one he’s heard from her before. It sounds more like the kind of laugh he’s heard from his mum, when something isn’t funny after all. “Smaller, innit?”

Noah lifts Johnny up onto his knee, bouncing him a little. Vanessa looks down at the two of them, running her hand through Johnny’s still-damp hair. 

Vanessa takes a deep breath and puts on a smile that doesn’t quite look right on her face. “It’s me and Johnny. Tracy, my dad.”

“What about your mum?” Noah asks.

Vanessa’s smile thins. “Been a long time since we’ve talked.” Something in her eyes brightens and Noah notices it. “I had an aunt.” The light fades. “But she passed.”

Noah taps the pencil against the page of his notebook, pushing his bottom lip out as he thinks.

_ Vanessa is different _ , his mum had said. 

Slowly, he draws a hard, firm line from ‘Charity’ down to the corner of the page. He draws a circle and puts ‘Vanessa’ in the middle of it. He makes a softer line from ‘Vanessa’ to another circle, just below that one. He puts ‘Johnny’ in it, reading each letter to the boy sitting on his lap. 

“Noah,” Vanessa says softly.

“S’not like it’s much to add,” he mutters, rolling his eyes for effect. He keeps his eyes down, though, to hide the blush on his cheeks. “Got enough to fill the pub.”

“Noah,” Vanessa repeats.

“You’re all right,” he says quickly. “Don’t… don’t go barmy over it.”

Vanessa’s hand slips off Johnny’s head, landing on his shoulder. She squeezes and he looks up, meeting her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Noah shrugs, bouncing Johnny again.

“Didn’t you say something about tea, babe?” Charity asks, leaning in over Vanessa’s shoulder. She kisses the side of Vanessa’s neck, her hand curling around Vanessa’s hip.

Noah makes a face at them. “Aren’t you supposed to stop doing that when you’re old?”

“Who’re you calling old, you?” Charity asks, pushing at his shoulder. She grins at him. “Why don’t you take the boys and go get some crisps in the cellar. A pack each, yeah? You can have them before tea.”

“Charity,” Vanessa scolds. “They’ll ruin their appetite.”

Noah pretends to gag when Charity kisses Vanessa’s neck again. “It’s already ruined,” he says miserably. He gets up anyway, lifting Johnny onto his hip and tipping his head towards Moses. “We’ll take the long way down.”

“Good boy,” Charity says, winking. She winds both arms around Vanessa’s waist.

Noah pauses in the doorway, Johnny kicking his heels into his side and Moses tugging on his hand. He looks back over his shoulder. Vanessa is holding the notebook with his family tree, one hand still tracing the lower left corner where he wrote her name. His mum is kissing the side of her face, murmuring something he can’t hear.

_ There _ , he thinks.  _ Now she can never leave us _ .

Vanessa looks up and meets his eye. Noah smiles. 


End file.
